#42 "When you're stressed and feeling blue"

Greetings from the National Express. Although I mentioned to several people that this journey would involve an attempt by me to talk to as many people as possible on board, this plan has been shattered by the fact that I am surrounded by an entire family of people talking... Well, I don’t know what they’re talking actually. Even if there was anyone remotely Anglo-Saxon sitting near me, conversation would be made impossible by the constant warbling of the aforementioned family’s infant. As a result, I’ve resorted to writing this blog on the coach, and indulging in some podcasts.


Since going to Sheffield, I’ve broken away from The Daily Telegraph, and instead begun reading The Guardian instead. There are several reasons why I prefer it: for one, the language and content is far less stuffy; for seconds, its Media section on a Monday is unmatched anywhere else; and thirdly because, in an age where newspapers are losing readers to the internet, the Guardian is becoming more and more like a website. Every page is in colour, every page has pictures, and practically all content is available online too. Perhaps the greatest feature, though, is their new podcast. It is the perfect example of how newspapers can ensure their survival. Published every day at 12 noon, it updates you on the stories you may have read in the morning’s print edition, and it encourages you to buy the next day’s paper too. Plus, it’s all read in Northern tones (and they get away with a bit of swearing, to boot).


Strange sighting of the week:
A man who had clearly mistaken pod casting for ghetto-blasting: walking down the street with a ghetto blaster in a plastic bag (to stop it getting wet) and listening to BBC Radio Manchester - twisting himself into stranger and stranger shapes in order to get decent reception. Bizarre.


I made the mistake this week of staring the Guardian’s “Quick” crossword. After being drawn in by a few obvious clues, I was hooked. Despite staying up until 2:00 the next morning (with occasional flashes of genius), I was left with two clues remaining by the time I had to go and buy the solution. Incidentally, the answers are Footman (6) - Flunky, and Lively, Exhilarating (6) - Breezy.

Service Station just passed: Tibshelf

Saturday this week was fairly hectic. With the sun out and shining, no further excuse was needed to venture into town for a traditional mid-day/afternoon pint. Bar S1 continued the summery theme with some old-skool Summer tracks, starting the day’s activities (erm... Drinking) off in earnest. After a brief interlude for a film (see below), it was off to Pop Tarts for an evening spent practically entirely in the 80s and 90s room. Class.

Films seen this week:
Narnia (not the greatest film I’ve ever seen, it’s fair to say) and March of The Penguins (probably the best penguin-based documentary I’ve ever seen, it’s fair to say)

Seen on the coach:
To obtain First Aid kit, break glass

Quote of the week:
“Can you make sure that’s locked shut please - it’s a fire escape”


Living in range of London, you forget just how bad local radio station jingles are - like Trax FM: Local radio for Doncaster and Bassetlaw (which I’m still not sure even exists).

Wanadoo offer double speed broadband for the same price that we're paying at home now... But for “new customers only” (said in a really spiteful voice on their ad, too) - which is annoying.

#41 Smorgasbord

Finally, hello and welcome to this week's star-studded edition. Recent entries have been frankly dull, and as any good Media student will tell you, "content is king": therefore, there's even some pictures here.

Essential student supplies

It's fair to say that I'd never heard the word "Rubicon" before I came to Sheffield, but now it's become an essential part of student life. If you have never enjoyed a can of Passion Fruit Rubicon, get up now, search out a chip shop and buy a can. It is (without doubt) the nicest thing to drink, especially after a good night out down the local. Equally as good - but in crisp form - are McCoy’s. I always used to eat Real McCoy’s when I went to primary school, but then switched allegiances to Walkers when... well, when everyone started buying Walkers crisps instead. But now I've seen the error of my ways. A few beers, a packet of McCoy’s, and a Rubicon on the way home: the perfect night out.


Annoying student commitments

I mean work, of course. This week I had a barrel-load of work dumped on me, although in all fairness it was daylight at the time, and someone shouted "Look out! Barrel!" well in advance. It was slightly different this time around though, because one of my essays was a 72-hour assessment: set on Monday morning with a strict deadline in 72 hours' time. With a Philosophy essay due in for today as well, I've probably done more work this week than in any other. Sacrifices had to be made though (Sorry Elyse, but I just didn’t get the chance to go and see “Crash”).

On a more positive note, I’ve now got all my marks back from last term’s work, and I’ve managed to scrape through all my courses with flying colours, so that’s all done and dusted. Indeed, I managed to get a 2.1 in Biblical Studies: a course I completed without ever once looking in/at an actual Bible.

Words I managed to get into my English Literature essay:
Phantasmagoria, Smorgasbord, and Extra-terrestrial


Television and Interweb

Surprisingly, if there’s one thing I don’t really miss from the Real World is television. When I’m at home, sitting on the sofa and watching Freeview for hours on end seemed like such a productive pastime. But I’ve realised now that there’s not really that much on that I’d really like to watch. Of course, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, but the interweb has helpfully stepped in. As well as watching The Apprentice, I can now see Never Mind The Buzzcocks too. Now if only they’d put Sky News online...

Still on The Apprentice, my love affair with the show continues. It also amazes me just how many stereotypical images of London landmarks they manage to squeeze in to the programme! When not showing off Docklands though, it’s necessary viewing. Sir Alan just gets sharper every week: his brutal honesty reminds me of someone here, and that always makes me smile. As for the participants... What are they thinking half the time? This week’s auditions for their commercial actually made me cringe.

Paul: Erm, can you just, erm, walk around for a bit?
Actor: Er... OK


Radio show of the week:
XFM’s Remix - it’s like Smash Hits’ Mashed Hits, but for indie kids


Facebook loser of the week:It was inevitable really... Just two weeks after I shot Ed Callow down in flames, his clone/brother Tom decides to try and “be my friend” instead. I blame the parents. In other Facebook news, the Bernard’s Watch group continues to go from strength to strength... 43 members now, and counting.

Division 3 Football:
Saturday saw a trek over the mountains to the picturesque fishing village of Stockport, where (for reasons that sounded good at the time) we witnessed the derby game between Stockport and Cheshire rivals Macclesfield. Highlights included traditional football chants, being greeted in a pub by someone I’d never met before with “Yarr, Captain!”, and failing to find a single street without a Robinson’s pub. Game not such a highlight... Macclesfield lost 0-2, but that still leaves this season’s aggregate as 6-2 to them!

Scab! Scab! Scab!One of our English Literature seminarers (who I won’t name for legal reasons) is possibly the biggest scab this week: despite the fact his union is refusing to do any work connected with assessments, he is continuing to tell us how to write our essays, and says he’ll have them marked in two weeks.

Email of the week:
This is absolutely genuine, sent to all Ranmoor residents on Wednesday:

Subject: Internet Based Personality Questionnaire

Hello, I am a trainee clinical psychologist at Sheffield University, and am looking for volunteers to complete an Internet based questionnaire. The questionnaire looks at personality characteristics, and is totally anonymous. It takes about 25 minutes to complete, and your information will form part of my control data. This will be compared against a sample of people with an interest in sadomasochism (S&M). If you happen to have an interest in S&M, then you will be able to indicate this towards the end of the questionnaire. The results will be shown on my website in August 2006. A link to my website is provided below, where you will find my contact details and a link to the questionnaire...

#40 Effort

I really don't know what it is about this week, but everyone seems to be getting lazier. There is an increasing reluctance to go to any lectures, do the reading for a seminar, or even get up in the morning. I can only assume this latter issue is down to the miserable weather outside: for some reason, the sound of rain slapping my window doesn't make me want to jump up and seize the day...

Obviously, I have been doing some work. I had an assessment in for Tuesday for English: it looks increasingly likely that over the Summer I will not be reading a single book for pleasure, simply because I've got fed up of them. Usually I don't mind picking things apart and finding fault, but when I can't spot a single use of modern English within a whole chapter, I start to get slightly despondent.


Facebook losers of the week:
Phil Taylor - I know he's a legend, but still...
Scott Standing - I'll admit that before I saw his picture, I wouldn't have been able to pick him out of a room with only one person in it. Even if that person was wearing a badge saying "I am Scott Standing". And there was a big arrow pointing at him saying "Scott Standing". And his Mum and Dad standing outside saying "That's our son, Scott Standing, that is". I think I've made my point.

While on Facebook: If you've signed up, please join our new group: do a search for Bernard's Watch: The College Years and you'll find it. Safe in the knowledge that Bernard is too anti-social to ever join Facebook, it's a fantastic in-joke. It's even funnier than the IB, therefore I BS group, which makes me smile because it proves I was right all along.


A victim of its own success this week must be the BBC Two website, which was so clearly overloaded that I haven't been able to catch up with The Apprentice this week. Bah! Luckily, I've been listening to some classic Alan Partridge shows on the Radio Player instead. I'm also relieved that I can still get XFM London on my digital radio... there was a real danger they'd replace it with the new XFM Manchester station, and that would have driven me round the bend.


My contribution to the Philosophy lecture this week:
"Not Bracket P Arrow Bracket Q Versus R Bracket Bracket"


Next week, I have a 72-hour essay to do... this means it gets set on Monday morning and is in for Thursday morning. Although slightly panicked at first, I soon recognised that I usually leave all my essays to the last 72 hours anyway, so there's not much of a problem.


Finally, after months of building tension, the great Pool Rules Debate finally erupted this week. Issues under contention were: the number of shots allowed on the black, only being allowed to strike the cueball forwards after being replaced on the table, and the definition of a "free ball".

After consulting the internet, it turns out none of us was completely right or wrong, so the creation of the new Sheffield University Pool Rules has taken place. "Peace In Our Time".

#39 £8

Due to industrial strike action, this week's entry has been put together in five minutes.

The Apprentice:
Blimey! How difficult do the two teams want to make it for themselves? You are never going to find a dinner jacket in Camden Market! You won't get cooked lobsters from a fish stall in the East End! Don't spend two hours, forty-five minutes drawing plans on flip-charts! Most of all - don't then pretend that it isn't all your fault at the board meeting to look good in front of Sir Alan!! "I don't know if you're just a bloody nutter" has to be one of the greatest quotes from the series.

Sheffield United vs Crewe:
The trick here is to buy student tickets, forget your NUS card when you get to the turnstiles, and then blag your way into the Kop amongst all the hardcore fans who know every song. Or at least, that's what I've been told by the jammy Midlanders who did this. Also, why did no one else in the Gordon Lamb Upper Stand chant "You're not singing anymore!" when the half-time entertainment ended?

Strike Action:
Strike action on Tuesday meant a day off for me, and a day waving placards for my lecturers and seminarers. Give them more money! No seriously, do, else we won't get all our essays marked and our end-of-year exams look in jeopardy. Actually...

Facebook:
The whole Facebook debate continues. Will the losers who I've never actually spoken to please stop trying to be my friend. Do you even understand how Facebook works? Do you realise that the people with "347 friends" don't actually know 340 of them? They just think that they should add them because they happen to live in the same campus/city for 6 months a year. Get some real friends, and you'll recognise what a waste of time Facebook is.

Yes, I'm talking to you, Ed Callow. You sad, lonely retard.

The Away-Goals Rule is stupid.

Emily Maitlis never really pulls off the "friendly" interview quite well enough.

Renaissance English Literature is also stupid. And dull. Stupid and dull.

Snow:
Going out of an evening, even though it's snowing: the mark that I'm slowly becoming Northernised. Luckily, it was the same night as the Sheffield game, so it was out with The Yellow Ball.

Thunderbird is brilliant.

#38 Captain's log

Sunday, 26th day of February
Woken at around an hour before high noon by a shout from some of the cabin boys. It seems that stove that warms the shower water has broken. Luckily, as a result of attending the Leadmill tavern on Saturday eve to watch the Delays band, 'twasn't I who had the displeasure of being showered with water as cold as Arctic ice. It being the Sabbath day, work to repair the stove will have to wait until the morn of the 27th...
Delays good... 'Valentine' absolutely fantastic, as was 'Long Time Coming', although their improvisation skills need improving after a near-death in the front row. Yarr, that be a slight exaggeration...

High noon, 27th
We continue to lie stranded among the Seven Hills of "Sheffield". We be surrounded on all sides by water, and tempests continue to rain down: these Seven Hills risk becoming the Seven Seas. Alas, there still be none for us to clean the latrines with. Plans for us to raid another block for us to use their bath chambers are formulated.
The Afternoon, same day
As a result of our invasion, a new rivalry has opened between the fleets of H and G... there be some murmurings from some of the cabin boys that their showers be better than ours, but they be no match for the fact that we don't need to jump ship to get to them...

28th
Nothing to report until late evening, when a message is passed around that the water will be returned by the first of the third month. Some fear for flooding when the water returns, but none are realised.
Some of the shipmates fry some 'pancakes', but our galley's stove is broken and there is no water to clean the pans with afterwards... poor sub-standard offering from the main kitchens fails to satisfy. We sail to the South Seas in the evening, where flagons of ale are sold for a single gold coin.

The Month of March
Hot water returns, although some scurvy dogs have laced it with "The Chlorine". None of the crew are advised to drink the stuff. By evening, all is restored back to normal (although we do now have access to the E, F and G blocks).

Head for the Leadmill tavern again, evening, after watching battle between English and Uruguayan fleets. Captain Beckham's fleet victorious, with Joe Cole putting in a first rate performance. Also noted ship for carrying hideous freak from a town called Macclesfield: "the boy who survived the stretching rack"... some say he was 12, others 21.


OK, Enough of the crap Pirate clichés now.

The Apprentice was watched again... it's fantastic viewing, with the frankly loopy Jo proving hugely entertaining and 'Invicta' proving increasingly frustrating. It's only week 2, but I'm hooked already.

Also... Voted in the Union Elections - it's Results Night Live in Bar One tonight; I've (sort of) converted another to Firefox this week; Started planning what to do next Tuesday... when the university goes on strike, of course!!


Found written on desks this week:
Q: Are thunderbolts and lightning very, very frightening?
A: Galileo!

Life is wonderful and meaningless
(the answer to life, the universe and everything)

Even Buckingham Palace eats Corned Beef

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